


Devotion

by moonriverdrifter



Series: Mother is the name for God [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of Abortion, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Labor and Birth, Self-Harm, Sisters, Someone's having a baby, discussions of Adoption, or are they?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonriverdrifter/pseuds/moonriverdrifter
Summary: In which Zelda and Hilda both have a lot of thinking to do about the limits--and possibilities--of family and faith.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic is meant to take place long before either Sabrina or Ambrose are a thing. I'm keeping actual ages and time periods intentionally vague because that's what the show does, so there's no way of really knowing how old anyone is. But this is meant to be set when all three Spellman siblings are relatively young. Like, whatever the witch equivalent of "young adults" are in this universe. Also, I really hope I've got them in character. Never written in this fandom before, so I'm still kind of trying to get it right. Hope you enjoy, and give me some love if you do!

Hilda was cramped. _Literally and figuratively,_ she thought, smothering a giggle. Even being smushed into her and Zelda’s bedroom closet with her knees drawn up to her chest couldn’t dampen the young witch’s perpetual enthusiasm. On the contrary, it was making her feel better at the moment. It seemed as if her uterus had fashioned itself into several tight knots, and nothing would convince it to unfurl. Even lying in bed with the hot water bottle had proven useless. Inexplicably, though, curling into a ball in this little space seemed to be just the ticket.

Her current position had more than one strategic advantage. Zelda, of course, knew all of Hilda’s little hidey holes, but if she, too, was incapacitated by cramps, as Hilda knew she would be, then she’d be unlikely to go looking in the first place. Hilda drew a modicum of comfort—and even a twisted little bit of pleasure—from knowing that even the almighty Zelda couldn’t escape her monthly curse. But it also made her sad, because the sisters had been going through all of this simultaneously ever since Hilda’s first cycle. 

Their mutual suffering should have brought them closer together, but instead, Zelda turned into a raging monster. Hilda had, by now, lost count of all the times her sister’s pre-menstrual fury earned her an iron to the face or a blade at her throat. She always came back, of course; Zelda saw to that, but it was such an inconvenience to climb out of the earth, stiffened from a long sleep and covered in mud and blood, while her insides were also writhing in protest.

Hilda’s stomach twisted in an entirely different way as she heard the soft cadence of her sister’s footsteps on the stairs, and then the creaking of their bedroom door. She held her breath, going still as the corpse she had been this time two months ago after Zelda pushed her down the stairs. Alas, though, it was all for naught, and Hilda felt that the world was ending when she saw the doorknob twist and then the shaft of light illuminating Zelda’s slender form.

“You can come out from there, Hilda,” her sister drawled, raising one eyebrow in amusement, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Hilda remained seated, still and quiet as an unholy church mouse. Despite what both her siblings seemed to believe (and Mama, and Papa, she added, feeling the twinge of pain that always came with her parents’ memory), she was not, in fact, slow or stupid, and she hadn’t fallen for her sister’s “there’s nothing to fear from me” act since they were both children.

Zelda, realizing that Hilda wasn’t going to move, simply rolled her eyes and went towards her bed, throwing herself onto it with a melodramatic huff.

“Fine, stay in there all day, then,” she said, reaching for the French newspaper she’d left on her bedside table. When Hilda was sure that Zelda was engrossed in her reading, she finally untangled her limbs and rose up, wincing as her womb sent a stab of raw distress through her entire nervous system.

After she had settled herself carefully amongst her own bedsheets, Hilda shot a glance at her sister, regarding Zelda critically as the older witch sank back into her pillows, crossing one leg over the other as she read.

“Zelda?” Hilda asked, tentatively, aware that she was probably bringing the wrath of Satan down upon herself.

Zelda did not respond, but Hilda never had been good at keeping her mouth shut, so she pressed on: “How are you not just dying right now? I mean, well, it is…it’s our time of the—”

“I know perfectly well what time it is,” Zelda snapped. She turned wrathful eyes upon her sister, and Hilda gulped. She braced herself for the feeling of neatly-manicured hands fastened around her neck, and couldn’t have been more surprised when, instead of jumping on her, Zelda softened her face and turned her attention back to her paper.

“I suppose I’ve simply grown out of the cramps and the aches,” said Zelda, almost thoughtfully, “Perhaps when you get a little older, you will, too.”

“Satan, I hope so,” muttered Hilda, pressing her face to her pillow and closing her eyes. Sleep had almost overtaken her when she was disturbed by a faint groan. Hilda sat up in bed to see Zelda jumping up and rushing to the corner of the room, where their chamber pot sat on its rosewood stand. Hilda watched, in mute disbelief, as her sister snatched the pot up and unceremoniously proceeded to cast the entire contents of her stomach into it—not that there could have been much; Hilda hadn’t actually seen her eat in days.

“Oh, my word, Zelda!” she said, springing up and going to her sister, ignoring her own hurts. Zelda shrank from the hand that Hilda reached out, sneering at her and clearly prepared to deliver some biting remark when her eyes went wide and she turned back to the bowl. She didn’t protest as Hilda rubbed comforting circles over the small of her back.

“Sweet Satan, Zelda, are you all right?” she asked, when her sister had finished and set the chamber pot down.

“Obviously not,” replied Zelda, trying and failing to sound condescending.

“Well, do you need anything? I mean, can I get you—” She trailed off as Zelda turned to her. The look of sheer terror in her blue eyes was one that Hilda had never seen before, and seeing her powerhouse of a big sister look so scared made Hilda want to vomit herself. For once in Hilda’s life, words failed her as her mind worked overtime and things began to click into place.

“Oh, Zelds…” she said, unable to hide the edge of pity in her voice. Zelda hated to be pitied; it made her feel pathetic, and just now, it roused her ire, too.

She turned to her sister abruptly, her eyes blazing with the full force of typical Zelda rage.

“If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you,” she ground out, “And this time, I’ll bury you as far from the Cain pit as I possibly can.”

“Of course,” said Hilda, “Of course I won’t tell anyone, Zelds. But…but…what are you going to do?”

Zelda shrugged, trying to look dignified as she wobbled over to her bed and all but crashed into it.

“Well, I’m not going to keep it, obviously,” she said, her old haughtiness creeping back into her voice, “I mean, sweet Satan, think of the scandal.”

Hilda frowned. For just a moment, she had put all her pity and her confusion aside and allowed herself to entertain the notion of a niece or nephew, something sweet and small that she could cradle in her arms and coo over. They’d never had a little one in the house; it would be so exciting.

But then she thought of Edward, and she thought, also, of the Church of Night. To consider one was to be reminded of the other, and it had been that way since before Hilda was even a glint in their parents’ eyes. It had always simply been understood, as far back as Hilda could remember, that Edward would enter the clergy when he was done with school, and that he would go far in his chosen vocation. It was a prophecy that he himself had spoken at the age of only six, and which he was even now working so hard to bring to fruition. 

Satan, how proud Mama and Papa would be of him, their golden child, bathing the Spellman name in glory. It was all they had ever wanted; both parents had pinned all their hopes and dreams on Edward, while Zelda and Hilda, his juniors and only girls, after all, were left to languish in their brother’s shadow. All their lives, Hilda and Zelda had been reminded of how special Edward was, how he was to be the family’s champion. They’d been taught to be fiercely devoted to their big brother, and they were, both of them, but Mama and Papa had never allowed either of them to love Edward without being conscious of how quickly just one misstep on their part could destroy him. Since they were little, Zelda and Hilda had been warned, time and again, that if they ever did anything to jeopardize Edward’s future, or to blacken the Spellman name, their branches would be quickly and ruthlessly hacked from the family tree.

And one of his sisters bearing a bastard child, well, that certainly would throw a wrench into the works for Edward, wouldn’t it? Hilda knew that, she understood it, but she struggled to reconcile the idea with the reality that was now in front of her.

“So then, you’re going to…to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

“Well, of course I am,” Zelda said shortly. And then her lips trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to let the tears escape. “What other choice do I have, Hilda?”

Hell if Hilda knew. She didn’t know what to say, or what to do, really, so she settled for being useful in the only possible way she could think to. She sat next to Zelda on the bed, scooting close to her body, and put one arm around her shoulders. Zelda tried to pull away, as Hilda had known she would, but she simply moved closer, letting her other arm circle Zelda’s chest and burying her face in her sister’s shoulder, pretending that she was the one who needed to be soothed, just as she always had whenever Zelda needed comfort but refused to accept it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I work fast, you guys.

Once, when Zelda was eight years old, she got trapped in an open grave in the Greendale cemetery. It was Edward’s fault, though he wouldn’t take any of the blame for it, and of course Mama and Papa never punished him. He told them that she climbed in of her own accord. And it was true; she did, but only because Edward told her that the deeper you went into the earth, the nearer you got to the one true god. Zelda had no reason to disbelieve him, because who knew more about their infernal master than Edward? She trusted her brother, but more than that, she had never in all her life wanted anything more than to feel close to the Dark Lord.

Zelda still hated the smell of fresh-turned soil; each time she buried Hilda, she had to breathe through her mouth or she swore she’d go mad. It was too strong a reminder; that scent brought her right back to Edward’s mocking laugh as he walked away, ignoring her shrieks and pleas. Back to trying to climb up the grave wall, dirt crunching and flaking in her hands, propelling her back down each time she thought she had a foothold. Back to four hours of nourishing the ground with her tears as she waited for someone to save her, anyone, giving up a little bit more with each passing minute.

And the worst part of it all? She never once felt Satan’s presence in that cramped little hole. By the time the old mortal sexton found her and lifted her quivering body back to the land of the living, Zelda had actually been less than a whisper’s breadth away from calling upon the False God.

Now, lighting the last of her devotional candles and sinking to her knees on the bedroom floor, Zelda felt much the same as she had on that bleak childhood day, decades ago. She had been able to keep the dirt and the shadows and the hurt from shifting above her as long as she didn’t acknowledge anything. Of course she had _known_ ; she’d been a practicing midwife for more years than she could count on both hands. It would have been impossible for Zelda not to know. 

But knowing a thing and accepting it, well, there was a difference, wasn’t there? Or so Edward had said in his last impromptu dinner-table sermon, when Zelda had expressed frustration at how anyone could deny the existence of their lord Satan. It had made sense to her, and it still did, and she had been comfortable living in denial, with simply not handling it for as long as she feasibly could.

She hadn’t counted on Hilda, though. Sweet Satan, she almost wanted to laugh when she thought how, for the past four months, she’d managed to hide her shame from everyone, _everyone_ , except for her sister. Virginal Hilda, who couldn’t possibly know what Zelda was going through, because she’d never had a man and didn’t even have the good sense to be bothered by it. Who, most of the time, was off in her own little world of gumdrops and pink lace.

And she, not Zelda, was the one pushing this situation to its apotheosis. She was the one trying to make Zelda face what she did not want to face, forcing reality upon her at every turn with her constant refrains of “Is there anything I can get you, Zelds? Is there anything I can do?”

She was trying to be helpful. Satan save them all from Hilda’s helpfulness. But Zelda would have been lying if she said that some little part of her didn’t appreciate it. There was a reason that Hilda hadn’t ended up in the Cain pit once since she found out Zelda’s secret, and it wasn’t that Zelda was afraid she would run and tattle to Edward if she wasn’t nice to her, because she knew her sister never would.

“Hilda, Hilda, Hilda,” Zelda whispered, rolling her eyes and then beginning her prayers.

After she had finished, she snuffed out the candles and made her way downstairs to the kitchen, where she knew Hilda would be waiting for her with the teapot. Today was the day; it was time for Zelda to stop being such a sentimental idiot and finally unburden herself. It was easy; she knew the recipe by heart, and the tea was so simple to make that even Hilda could do it, once Zelda told her the exact combination of herbs.

And it would be painless. How many times had Zelda sat with a patient, holding their hand and assuring them that of course there would be no suffering? A bit of blood, yes, some cramping, but then in just a few days you’ll be right as rain and back on your feet. Zelda had given that exact spiel to overtired, middle-aged housewives who already had an unfathomable number of children and couldn’t manage one more, to teenagers who, with tears in their eyes, begged her not to say anything, because even their own mothers didn’t know. And they all pulled through, hail and healthy physically if not a bit dented emotionally, and Zelda would, too. She was stronger than most, and she’d be just fine.

Zelda took her seat at the small, cramped table, the one where she and Edward and Hilda had eaten, _en famille_ , ever since Mama and Papa passed. Their parents had always made them eat in the formal dining room, with the fine china for every meal, because they were Spellmans, and they needed to uphold a certain standard. But Edward took most of his meals at the Academy these days, or while rushing out the door on his way there, and his sisters had spent less than a week sitting at opposite ends of the big mahogany table before coming to the conclusion that it was ridiculous to stand on this particular ceremony. It was one of the only things they had ever agreed on in their lives.

Hilda chirped out a greeting as her sister sat down, which Zelda acknowledged with a grunt before asking, curtly, if the tea was ready. A fleeting shadow crossed Hilda’s face before she nodded.

“Ready as it’ll ever be!” she said, trying to sound nonchalant and going overboard, straying into a hollow kind of enthusiasm that had Zelda seriously rethinking her stance on murdering in her current condition.

Hilda poured a cup and brought the concoction over, placing it in front of her sister and then, annoyingly, hovering. Zelda supposed that Hilda was trying to make sure she was, in fact, going to drink, because she imagined that she was just as eager to get this over with as was Zelda. Hilda was not devious by nature, and Zelda almost felt guilty when she thought of what keeping her unsavory little secret must be doing to her.

Really, though, Hilda simply didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to dash the teacup away, to splatter the brew across the floorboards. She had no moral objection to the choice Zelda had made. Beyond that, she had never been where her sister was, and nor was she likely to be anytime in the near future. As such, she didn’t suppose she had any right to judge. 

But it was so patently obvious that this was not what Zelda herself wanted. Hilda knew all her reasons, and she understood why Zelda felt that this was her only way out. She even thought that, were she in Zelda’s place, she would feel exactly the same, and probably do the same thing. But that didn’t make it all right, and it wouldn’t make the aftermath any less difficult for Zelda.

Hilda’s contemplation was interrupted by Zelda, who turned to her with narrowed eyes containing a familiar glint of annoyance which had, historically, never meant anything good for the younger witch. Carefully, she took a step back to give her sister some privacy. With Hilda posted up by the kitchen sink, Zelda took the opportunity to stare into the watery yellow-brown depths of her teacup, seeking answers—or perhaps absolution—that she knew would not be forthcoming.

 _Just drink, you fool_ , she scolded herself. It wasn’t like it was hard; she didn’t even have to finish it all. Just one sip, and then one more, and it would be nearly over, and she’d be free, all her stupid mistakes undone. She tried to lift her arm towards the cup, but the limb went rigid, and she couldn’t make it obey.

“Zelds?” Hilda had reappeared at her side, and looked dangerously close to offering succor that Zelda did not want or deserve, so she did the only thing she could think of to fend her sister off. 

“She moved,” Zelda said, and even to her own ears her voice sounded like it had been dead and buried and was just coming back to life.

“What? She?” Hilda’s eyebrows were knitted together in confusion.

“It,” corrected Zelda, with a shrug that was almost but not quite noncommittal, “This…this thing. I felt it, this morning while I was in my bath. It moved.”

“Oh, Zelda…” And then there was a hand on her back, tracing tiny circles, and Zelda couldn’t stand it, so she pulled away, stood up and pushed the teacup back at her sister.

“Save this for me, Hilda. I’m feeling ill again; I couldn’t possibly keep anything down right now.”

Before Hilda could respond, the front door was opening, and a man’s voice echoed through the foyer. The sisters exchanged almost frantic glances and, oddly enough, it was Hilda who had the presence of mind to sweep the teacup away, dumping its contents into the sink. She'd just finished rinsing it out when Edward strolled into the kitchen, looking every inch the dignified career man in the grey suit Zelda had pressed for him that morning.

“Well, sisters, what mischief have you got up to in my absence?” he asked, his blue eyes dancing. Clearly, he’d had an easy day at the Academy, which was a relief to both Zelda and Hilda, as it meant that he wouldn’t be up until all hours, grumbling and cursing in his study.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Teddy,” Zelda drawled, and when he came forward to put an arm around her and muss her hair, she made a show of wriggling away from him in feigned disgust. It was a game they had played since they were little.

“We were just making some tea,” Hilda said.

“Oh? Well, good; I could use a little kick. You wouldn’t believe how many papers I’ve got to grade, and they’re all due back by week’s end.”

Hilda’s eyes went wide as he reached for the pot, and if Zelda had been in any other kind of mood, she wouldn’t have wasted the opportunity to mock the way her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. This time, though, she stepped in, the more practiced liar coming to rescue little Hilda, who had always been utterly without guile. 

“That tea isn’t for you, brother. It’s for one of my patients. Although, if you’d like to start lactating, then, by all means, have at it,” she said.

Edward wrinkled his nose in disgust. “No, thank you; I’m quite all right,” he said.

“I’ll…umm…I’ll make you a proper spot of tea, then, shall I?” squeaked Hilda, going over to a cabinet and occupying herself with the momentous choice between Earl Grey and English Breakfast.

“So, little sister, were you helping Zelda to brew her remedies?” asked Edward.

“She was,” Zelda chimed in before Hilda could open her mouth and make it even more obvious that they were hiding something, “She’s been very helpful this afternoon, as a matter of fact.”

Edward frowned; it wasn’t normal for Zelda to give their sister even the smallest bit of credit, and it almost made him wonder what in Satan’s name was going on between them. 

“Well, that is good to hear, indeed,” he said, pushing aside the brief swelling of suspicion. Zelda’s moods had always been highly variable, and he supposed he’d just managed to catch her on an upswing. “It’s nice to know that Hilda’s actually been applying herself to something.”

Hilda frowned, accepting the jibe and taking it in, just as she did every barb that either of her siblings flung at her. She ignored the familiar prick of pain, though, and simply stood up straighter.

“Now that you bring it up, brother, I have been praying on what you said the other night.” Edward turned to her, and Hilda gave him her most innocent smile. “When you said that I needed to get out of the house more, maybe take up a profession, like Zelda has. And I was thinking…I might be interested in training as a midwife, too.”

She looked over to her sister, who had her lower lip between her teeth and looked dangerously close to…well, she couldn’t tell exactly. Crying? Cursing? Grabbing a butcher knife and running it through Hilda’s skull? It was harder than usual to read Zelda these days.

“Hilda!” Edward exclaimed, clearly pleased, “Why, yes, I think that would be a very appropriate undertaking for you. Don’t you, Zelds?”

“Why should I care what Hilda chooses to do with her life?” said Zelda, not quite as neutrally as she might have, “Let her be a midwife, as long as I'm not expected to train her. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have a headache, and I need to rest. Wake me when dinner is ready.”

Edward turned to his youngest sister, rolling his eyes theatrically as if to say, _Oh, Zelda_ , and Hilda forced herself to return the gesture with a grin, fighting the urge to bolt and follow her sister upstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Zelda plays chicken with her unborn child.

You were supposed to talk to them. Zelda was taught that in her midwifery training. Her mentor, a venerable witch named Ursula who had forgotten more about babies than Zelda ever knew, was the one to tell her that. You needed to encourage the expectant mother to speak to her child, if she wasn’t already, Ursula said. It was supposed to form a bond.

Zelda had never imagined herself bonding with any child. Certainly, she always thought that one day, she’d be a mother, but that wouldn’t be for a while yet. First she would need to be married, an eventuality that she’d been preparing for all her life, though she never did have anyone in particular in mind for the role of groom. She supposed that, when the time was right, Edward would choose someone suitable, as fathers and older brothers had been doing for the women under their care since time immemorial. Children, though…well, beyond simply assuming that she would have them at some point, Zelda hadn’t given them much thought.

She had never been around children, not really. The Spellman family was expansive, but their branch was isolated, out here in the wilds of America. They saw the aunts and uncles and cousins back in England so infrequently, and besides, there hadn’t been a new baby in the family since their second cousin Walton, and he’d taken his Dark Baptism that very summer. Outside of that, there had never been much opportunity for the Spellman siblings to mingle with children since they were little themselves. Growing up, they were among the youngest members of the Church of Night.

Their numbers had dwindled after the witch hunts of the seventeenth century, Mama explained one day, when Zelda asked why they were such a small congregation. She and her brother and sister were far removed from that horror, but the community still had yet to fully recover. For a long time after the hysteria ceased, the surviving witches had been afraid to bring children into a world that was so hostile towards their kind. While studying under Ursula, Zelda had learned that most of the numerous abortifacient teas and powders she was learning to make were invented in the 1700s, by frightened witches who feared the possibility of either watching potential children burn right alongside them or leaving them parentless.

Zelda and her siblings were part of a boom generation, a concerted effort on the part of their kind to replenish their ranks as the childless elders, those who survived the worst of the purges, died off, leaving only a few scattered descendants behind. But none of her peers had begun having babies quite yet; they were all still young, still wild, still not ready to settle down. Indeed, most of Zelda’s livelihood came not from delivering babies, but from brewing and mixing contraceptives for former Academy comrades. 

It was ironic, then, that she should find herself in her current predicament, since she knew, at the very least, twenty different recipes for magical birth control. Why, once, in Barcelona, after participating in a spontaneous orgy, she had even made herself a highly effective post-coital poultice with only the ingredients she happened to be carrying in her handbag.

Zelda had often, in the eight months since she had first realized that her menstrual cycle was no longer synced up to her sister’s, or indeed present at all, wondered what exactly had gone wrong in her head, how she could have been so stupid. She still had no answer, or at least, not one that she could put into words. All she had was the memory of eyes of liquid fire, black as the deepest reaches of the infernal pit and just as tempting, recollections of mahogany limbs twining around hers, the delicious juxtaposition of his dark skin against her moonlight-pale flesh. 

He had captivated her, during that week they spent together in London, and Zelda had _wanted_ him. It was ironic, for someone whose nickname, even among the promiscuous youths at the Academy, had been “Nympho,” that Zelda couldn’t remember ever really being so undone with lust, so unable to control herself. Before _him_ , sex had always just been something that she felt was expected of her, as it was of everyone at school. They, newly initiated into the ways of the profane and now free to do as they would, were meant to explore their powers, their gifts, their bodies and those of their peers. It was tradition, and Zelda had never been one to break with tradition, and of course it helped that she’d discovered she quite liked sex, and was, in fact, very, very good at it.

It was different with _him_ , though. He had put all notions of tradition and expectations from her mind, which was, even Zelda had to admit, a monumental achievement. No, with _him_ , it was all instinct, all new and raw and glorious, and afterwards, even when it became clear that he was to be gone from her life, and she from his, Zelda couldn’t help but be grateful to him. She hadn’t loved him; Satan, she hadn’t even _known_ him, really, but he taught her valuable lessons about the true meaning of intimacy and pleasure, gave her a barometer for measuring any and all future encounters. Truly, he’d sent her back to dreary little Greendale a new woman.

 _In more ways than one_ , Zelda now thought, bitterly. Because there was no way she was going to make it out of this mess unchanged. Before, she had been an ascendant Daughter of Night, a privileged child from a prominent family, with all the world in front of her. She was the sister of the brilliant Edward Spellman, and if not everybody realized, or acknowledged, that Zelda was also supremely talented in her own right, well, that didn’t matter, because there had always been those who did. Even Edward’s mentor, the exulted Faustus Blackwood, had pronounced Zelda “possibly Edward’s greatest asset,” and that was high praise, coming from a man who not only held an imminent position in their church, but who did not dole out commendations lightly, especially to women.

But all of that, it was the past now; it was who she had been. Zelda couldn’t see far enough ahead of her own sullen misery to know what kind of person she would be after this was all over, and that shook her to her very core. It scared her even more than the thought of what was inside of her, just waiting to rip her open and leave her body a gaping wreck after it made its way out. That part she could handle, although, if she were being honest with herself (and Zelda still mostly wasn’t, because denial was simply so easy, so much nicer than the alternative), she had to admit that it did keep her up at night. But, truly, she feared the aftermath more, the uncertainty, the changes, the reality of what was, as yet, still only a hypothetical.

Already this pregnancy had changed her from a once-dignified person into a woman who was currently engaged in debate against herself, about the merits of conversing with something that couldn’t even understand her. Because you were supposed to talk to them. Hilda reminded her of that only last night. It hadn’t been a judgement on Zelda, hadn’t even been aimed at her, really. Hilda simply mentioned it over dinner. She was prompted by Edward to talk about her studies, and she said that her mentor told her you were supposed to talk to babies while they were still in the womb. 

But of course Zelda had taken it personally, because the little creature inside her had hijacked her hormones and seemed to delight in pulling all the emotional switches at once. She couldn’t help but take nearly everything personally at this point. As she chewed her steak, Zelda had seriously considered ramming her dinner knife right through Hilda’s left eye. 

Of course that would have been stupid, because if nothing else, it would have left her without a midwife. Zelda was now too bulky to carry both her own weight and Hilda’s out to the cemetery, and Edward wouldn’t help her, because the Cain pit was a silly child’s game and he maintained that his sisters should have given it up ages ago. Besides, he wouldn’t understand why she would need his help now when she never had before. She didn’t feel capable, with pregnancy hormones fogging her brain, of concocting an excuse that her brother might actually buy, and revealing the truth would defeat the purpose of the careful crisscross of glamors she laid across her midsection each morning and which she was thankful Edward had, as yet, failed to detect. 

And so she had simply let Hilda prattle on, engaging in the conversation only enough to roll her eyes each time Edward waxed poetic about how proud he was of all that their little sister was learning, all she was doing. Zelda wished he would stop that, because it made her feel like bawling. Once upon a time, she had been the one that Edward was so proud of, and now…well, now, how could that possibly be the case anymore? He was probably going to disown her, if he ever discovered what both his sisters had, miraculously, so far managed to hide. But even if Zelda had wanted to express her frustration, she couldn’t, because she’d spent the rest of dinner, and most of the following day, stuck on what Hilda had said, about bonding, and talking, and letting your baby know your voice.

It had forced her to think…did she even want this child to recognize her voice? To know her, even if only in the smallest of ways? She was still adamant; she wasn’t going to keep it. It was, of course, too late now to end the pregnancy. Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. There were still things that Zelda could do, things that she had, in the past, helped other women to do.

It was grisly work, though, and Ursula had only performed it when all omens pointed to something being terribly wrong with the babe, or when the choice was between the child’s death and the mother’s life. It was a principle that Zelda stuck to in her practice, as well, and even if she did have the stomach for it, there was only Hilda to help her. And not only did she not trust her novice sister with the task, but…Zelda shook her head. No, she’d never been anything but cruel to Hilda, all her life, but she would never make her sister do _that_.

So she would be giving birth. At this point, it would have been not only foolish, but also irresponsible, to pretend otherwise. But bearing a child didn’t automatically make one a mother; or, at least, it didn’t have to. There were still options. Zelda wasn’t entirely sure what those might be; all she and Hilda had thought up, as yet, was depositing the child on the steps of the Church of Night, under the shroud of darkness. 

It would hardly be the first time the junior priests who lived there full-time woke up to the cries of an abandoned newborn witch or warlock. In fact, just last month Edward had told his sisters, in a tone of mixed pity and disapproval, about the foundling who’d been resting in a blanket-lined box on Brother Faustus’s desk when he went in for a visit with his mentor. The coven always managed to place them. There were plenty of devoted parishioners, mostly older people who had been too wary for children back in the post-purge days, who were happy to take in the forsaken ones. 

They gave the children good, pious homes, and the rest of the church simply chalked the orphans up to being the Dark Lord’s way of comforting the faithful who had not been blessed with their own seed. These children were not treated any differently than the other Children of Night, nor denied any opportunities; after all, the sins of their birth parents were not theirs. No, all the congregation’s wrath, all the disapproval and shame, was reserved for people like Zelda, who flouted all traditions of sacred courtship and unholy union by creating and bearing bastards in the first place.

In light of that, it was obvious that her child would be better off without her. Adopted out, the babe would have a chance at a respectable life, but if she kept it, they would both be pariahs, and the rest of the family would be shamed and ruined to boot, so really, there was only one choice. Which brought her back to the question: why should she (Zelda couldn’t stop calling it she, hard as she tried not to think of the thing as an actual human being with a gender) need to know Zelda’s voice? She supposed that she—it—didn’t, because Zelda wasn’t its mother, not really, so bonding was immaterial. 

But what happened if you didn’t talk to them? Not actually wanting the child didn’t mean that Zelda bore it any ill will, and she didn’t want to be responsible for—she didn’t even know. What if the thing was born mute, and it was all her fault because she had never once spoken to it, only _of_ it, in whispers and undertones, and only with Hilda?

Besides, the thing seemed determined to get her to acknowledge it in some way. All day long she—it—had been squirming around so much Zelda could swear it had turned her womb into a croquet pitch. It was the kind of action that seemed to demand a response.

What would she say, though? She didn’t know how to speak to children, and especially not to babies, even less to those not even yet born. She felt like an idiot, trying to figure out topics of conversation that would be appropriate for her swollen stomach.

With a slight flush creeping to her cheeks at her own foolishness, Zelda took the plunge, placing one hand on her abdomen and opening her mouth.

“I—” she said, uncertainly, words failing her. 

Zelda bit her lip, steeled herself, and tried again, but all she could do was repeat the same syllable, over and over, starting and then stopping, proving that obviously giving this child to someone else was the right choice, because it would be a piss-poor mother she’d make, if she couldn’t even speak to the thing.

She gasped as she felt a flutter beneath her skin, the fetus dropping in to remind her that it was still there, listening and waiting. And Zelda tried to appease it; she really did, but now language had left her, right along with rational thought, and she supposed it didn’t matter if the child ended up being unable to speak because they could simply be mutes and dullards together.

As if sensing that she had given up, and clearly not about to let her off that easily, the child moved again. This time, Zelda understood what almost all her patients had said at one point or another, about magical children sometimes being very outspoken, even in the womb. Whatever the thing did, it _hurt_ , and the sensation made Zelda cry out.

“Stop that,” she hissed, and this time her hand on her belly was anything but tentative. It was a warning.

Another movement, softer this time, not agonizing, but affirmational.

“That’s better,” Zelda said, “Just refrain from doing what you did before and we’ll be right as rain.”

And with that, she decided that she didn’t have anything to worry about, at least not when it came to communicating, or bonding. She and this little creature understood each other just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit my narcissistic self is really loving all the kudos and comments. Seriously you guys are giving me life please don't stop.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Edward is a complete dick.

“I hate being your guinea pig,” Zelda spat as she unbuttoned her blouse and climbed up onto her bed.

Hilda shifted her Pinard nervously from one hand to the other. 

_Well, tough tits_ , she thought, surprising herself with how venomous her inner voice was today. Did Zelda honestly think that she relished her first proper patient being constantly surly and only cooperative half the time? Hilda was just about at her wits’ end trying to be sympathetic. Treating Zelda like she was made as fine as one of her familiars' webs because she knew how close her sister was to breaking, knew it better than even Zelda herself. 

But all the understanding in the world only went so far, and it didn’t erase the fact that, after waking up at the arse crack of dawn and spending all day assisting with her very first delivery, Hilda had to come home and work even more, and of course her sister wouldn’t make it easy for her, because nothing was ever easy with Zelda.

“I know,” she managed, “But, you realize, you are free to find another midwife any time you’d like.”

Zelda lifted her head from her pillow, shooting the dirtiest look she could summon while her blouse was on either side of her and her slip was pushed up to her bosom, having and hating the sneaking suspicion that she looked ridiculous.

“Don’t try to be funny, Hilda. You are not up to the task.”

“And _you_ are not making my job any easier,” replied Hilda, “If you won’t quiet down for my sake, then do so for your baby. I can’t hear her heartbeat if you’re talking.”

Zelda rolled her eyes, but she ended by doing what her sister asked, remaining still as a corpse while Hilda’s hands palpated her stomach, coaxing the fetus into position.

“Don’t call it ‘she,’” Zelda said.

“What? Why, do you think it might be a boy?”

“I think it doesn’t matter.” 

Zelda glared at the ceiling, and Hilda bit her lip, realizing her mistake. Of course, Zelda now somewhat unconsciously referred to the baby as “she” each and every time it was brought up, which was still not often, not as much as Hilda might have liked and not as much as Zelda probably needed to talk about it. But, Hilda supposed, some things were simply off-limits for her, and that was fine and even right. She was only here to help, after all. Her hands would be the ones to usher her niece or nephew into the world, but the baby would still be Zelda’s, whether her sister was ready to accept that or not.

She placed the Pinard against her sister’s flesh, and leaned her ear against it. She heard nothing, and began to panic.

“You don’t have it in the right position,” Zelda said, exasperated.

“And how do you know what position I have it in?” snapped Hilda.

“Because it’s my stomach you’re poking it into willy-nilly!” replied her sister, “You’re meant to be looking for the baby’s back, and that is over here.” Zelda indicated the opposite hemisphere of her gravid belly.

Hilda was about to argue, but stifled herself. Zelda was the expert, after all; she was a fully-trained midwife and Hilda was still an apprentice and, besides, who would know the position of the fetus better than the person who could feel it inside? And so Hilda moved, and this time when she listened for the heartbeat, there it was, strong and certain and entirely as it should be.

“Oh, Zelds, it’s—” Before she could finish, there was a squeaking of unoiled metal on metal as their bedroom door’s hinges protested, and then Edward’s voice.

“Sisters! I got home from the Academy early, and I thought we might—”

And then he was stood in the doorway, looking as though someone had placed a freezing curse on him. Edward’s face was almost a caricature of mute shock, his mouth lolling open and his eyes like dinner plates. Hilda turned to her sister, and saw the same expression pasted onto her face, while both Zelda’s hands had left her sides and come to rest, protective, upon her stomach. 

Hilda herself didn’t know what to say, what to do, but she had to act quickly, because there was magic flaring in the room, Edward’s magic hot and angry and Zelda’s, patient, coiled up tight for now, but ready to strike should he lash out. And, unfortunately, if either of them made a move, Hilda, as the halfway point between them, would be the one to catch the brunt of it.

“Edward!” she exclaimed, “What have we both told you about coming into our room unannounced?”

“I—I—” Speechless Edward Spellman was a rare sight, indeed. Hilda could tell that he was caught somewhere between being startled and enraged by the sight of Zelda and the adolescent memories Hilda’s scolding had conjured up, of walking in on both of his sisters in various states of undress and, once, interrupting Hilda in a moment that was decidedly and explicitly meant to be just between herself and her own hand.

“Well? Get out,” said Hilda, making it clear that this was an order and not a request. Edward did not look at her; he and Zelda were still staring each other down. But, to his credit, he did retreat before Hilda had to use her own powers to make him move. He slammed the door behind him and then his sisters could hear him stomping down the hallway, like he hadn’t done since he was seventeen years old and Mama and Papa agreed with Brother Faustus that he was still too young to study necromancy.

Zelda shifted on her bed, and Hilda turned to her sister, and this time the sympathy was so genuine that Hilda could not stop it pouring forward although she knew Zelda emphatically did not want it.

“Zelds…”

“Save it, Hilda. So he knows now. Fine; good! He was going to find out eventually, and we all know we’re not done talking about this.” 

She was buttoning up her blouse now, sliding off the bed and using the nightstand to brace her as her ten-month baby weight almost took her back down. Once she’d regained her balance, she made her way to the door—rather more slowly now than she had previously been able to do—and then turned to her sister. “Well? Are you going to come, or will you leave me to face him alone?”

There was absolutely no way in Heaven or Hell that Hilda was going to do that, so she followed her sister through the hallway, down the stairs, and into the living room, where Edward was sitting, gazing at nothing with one of his hand-rolled cigarettes burning down between his fingers. When Zelda entered, as haughtily and gracefully as she could manage under the circumstances, his gaze quickly went from her face to her midsection, openly staring at the bulk that had simply seemed to appear all at once. Zelda hadn’t bothered to lay her usual glamors upon herself, as she really didn’t see the point, now.

“Edward,” Zelda said, crossing her arms over her chest. Her brother did not respond; he simply kept his eyes on the curve of her stomach, which made Zelda sigh impatiently.

“Edward,” she tried again, “Now that you know—”

“Now that I know,” he ground out, and Hilda quailed at the tone of his voice, something foreign and hostile that was not Edward, “Now that I know, what? That my sister is too stupid to clean up her mess after she’s fucked Satan only knows who?”

Hilda gasped, and looked to Zelda, searching her sister’s eyes for any sign of tears. Instead of crying, though, Zelda just huffed.

“You’re really going to sit there and call me a dumb slut, Edward Victor Spellman? After what I caught you doing, just last month, with two of your own colleagues? In the stairwell at the Academy, of all places?”

“Well at least neither of those women are walking around pregnant with a bastard!” growled Edward.

Zelda merely shrugged. “As far as you know,” she hissed.

“Don’t try and play this game with me, Zelda Fiona! No matter what you try to throw in my face, you’ve got nothing on me that even approaches what you’ve done! I mean, Satan’s hoof, do you have any idea what shame this could bring upon our family? On all of us? Have you ever, even once in your life, thought about anyone but yourself? What would Mama and Papa think of you, if they were here now?”

That had the desired effect, bringing up the matter of family honor, and throwing their parents in just for an extra little kick. Satan knew nobody had ever been able to hurt them, all three of them, quite like Mama and Papa. The thought of their posthumous disappointment was enough to quell Zelda’s ire, to bring a tinge of hot shame to her cheeks. Edward saw that he had her now, just as he knew he would, and his stony face softened marginally as he looked into Zelda’s eyes, shaking his head. 

“Honestly, sister. I thought you were better than this. You were always the intelligent one, the devout one, just as faithful to our traditions as our parents raised you to be."

"Edward..." Zelda said, softly, aware that she should be defending herself, but unable to think what to say. 

"You’re breaking my heart, you know," Edward cut her off, "I thought I could rely on you to help me, to do what’s right. Something this reckless, this stupid…well, it’s something I might have expected of Hilda, if she wasn’t so…Hilda. But not from you.”

Zelda’s legs had gone wobbly; they wouldn’t support her weight for much longer, and so she went over to the sofa and allowed herself to sink into it.

“Don’t talk about Hilda that way,” was all that Zelda could muster, “She’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Like heaven she doesn’t! You’ve been keeping secrets, too, haven’t you, little sister?”

“Edward! I was just—”

He cut Hilda off. “Just sneaking around behind my back, just neglecting your duty to the family name and enabling Zelda in this foolishness…”

“Oh, stop it, Edward! She wasn’t enabling me in anything. She’s been helping me to keep this quiet, so that it would cause you as little inconvenience as possible. I mean, Sweet Satan, I don’t even see what all the fuss is about. You don’t actually think I’m going to keep this thing, do you?”

“Well, of course you’re not going to keep it! Perish the thought!”

Zelda looked up at him, then, the first time she had since taking her seat, and Hilda could see that her eyes had gone glassy. Edward seemed not to notice; he was too busy making plans.

“We can’t give it to any of the coven families, of course. Can’t have the child anywhere near us, lest it favor our family too much and people start to see a resemblance. And then, of course, if the father is also a parishioner…”

“He isn’t,” Zelda said, “He’s not local and, anyway, he’s gone.”

“Well, that certainly saves me the trouble of pointing a shotgun at his face and forcing him down the aisle, then. Not that it isn’t already too late for a proper unholy ceremony anyway.” Edward looked down at his sister, and scoffed before continuing. “But there are other covens, and I know plenty of their High Priests. We could even go out of state; in fact, that would probably be the wisest course of action.”

To Hilda’s surprise, Zelda only nodded agreement, placing an unconscious hand upon her abdomen and then promptly removing it as if her fetus had suddenly started burning her up from the inside.

“Yes, I think that would be best,” said Zelda, “If you can arrange it.”

“Oh, I can arrange it, all right. I’ll just have to tell one of my brothers in Satan that there is a young woman in our coven who’s spread her legs for the wrong man and broken faith—”

Hilda shook her head, her cheeks burning. She’d been standing by quietly because this was not her fight, not her decision to make, and she had thought that Edward would be fair, be rational at least. But she hardly recognized her brother in the throes of what he thought to be righteous anger. The coarse words, the hateful gleam in his eye each time he looked at Zelda, who was now shaking on the sofa from the effort of holding back tears. It was more than Hilda could stand, and so she threw herself into the fray with a harsh “Oy!”

“Don’t you speak to her like that, Edward!” Hilda said, “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?”

“She should be upset! I can’t imagine why you’re mad at _me_ and not her!”

“Why are you being so cruel? Zelda’s made a mistake; that's all! She doesn't deserve her own brother calling her names and making accusations.”

“She deserves that and a whole lot more. Why, she should thank Satan we’re modern witches. In the old days, if a woman brought shame upon her family in this manner, her father or brother was well within his rights to—”

Unfortunately, Zelda didn’t get the opportunity to be enlightened about what men were empowered to do with wayward sisters in the olden days, because all at once, it was like she was hearing her siblings' voices from the other side of a raging storm. Pain stabbed into the center of her forehead, once, twice, and then once again, hellfire in her brain, and Zelda could hear blood rushing all through her.

She looked up, ready to scream for Hilda, but her sister was otherwise occupied. She and Edward were still at it, his face red as the devil’s own flames, and Hilda, little Hilda who always backed down from every fight, well, she was holding her own, albeit with tear tracks on her face. Zelda wanted to be proud of her baby sister, but she couldn’t focus on that right now; all she could concern herself with was how utterly unwell she felt, how she just wanted to get out of here, away from their bickering and Edward’s judgement, and into her own bed.

“Oh, would both of you please just shut up?!” Zelda yelled, loudly enough to startle both her siblings and make them turn to her, Edward with his face screwed up in rage and Hilda with wide-eyed concern.

“Honestly,” she said, “I can’t listen to one minute more of this; I’ve suddenly got a raging headache, and it is entirely your fault. The pair of you.”

Zelda anchored both fists on the sofa beneath her and leveraged herself up as gracefully, and as quickly, as she could. When both her feet were on the floor and her body was mostly upright, several things began happening at once. First, there was a shifting in her womb, different than anything she’d felt before, something that she didn’t have to be a midwife to know was not good. And then the room was whirling and her balance was lost, sending her crashing back down.

“Oh, Satan! Zelda!” Hilda was rushing forward, now, and the sensation of one arm around her waist, the other bracing her shoulders, was distant, but there, something to hang onto, at the very least.

Zelda muttered her sister’s name, unaware that her speech was slurred, unaware of much of anything, except that something was wrong. She couldn’t feel the baby anymore, for one, and also the world was blotted at the edges, the darkness pressing in, creeping closer with each brief eternity that passed, and Zelda was tired now, and confused, and she felt a little like weeping, a little like howling, and all-in-all, she was much too done-in to fight anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger? Cliffhanger. Because I'm a dick, too. Edward and I have that in common.


	5. Chapter 5

When Zelda came to, there was someone speaking in her immediate vicinity, calling her name. A man’s voice, near hysterical, begging her to come back, please, for Satan’s sake, please wake up.

“Please, little sister, please.”

Zelda’s eyelids fluttered, and then Edward’s face was in front of her, and it was a long moment before she remembered what exactly he was doing there, before it occurred to her to be afraid. He looked near to weeping, and she thought she could feel his finger stroking her cheekbone.

“Oh, thank the dark lord. Hilda! Hilda, you don’t need the smelling salts; she’s awake!”

The first word that Zelda spoke was her sister’s name, and then Hilda was there, pushing Edward aside and feeling Zelda’s clammy forehead. 

Zelda tried to move, but found herself hampered by Hilda’s hand on her chest, gentle but firm.

“No, love, stay right where you are.” Hilda took her sister’s hand and pressed her fingers up against the inside of Zelda’s wrist, frowning at what she found there.

“What’s wrong with her?” Edward asked.

“I can’t tell. She needs a more thorough looking-over. But if I had to guess, I would say that _you_ distressed her so much it shot her blood pressure up, and then when she tried to stand, it suddenly plummeted.”

“Oh, Satan. Is she going to be all right?”

“We’ll see. I need some place where we can lay her down properly, so I can tend to her.”

“I can…I can carry her to the kitchen table…”

Hilda grunted in dissent, and then replied, “No. I…need to examine her internally as well as externally, and I’d rather not do that where we eat breakfast. You’ll bring her upstairs to our room. Whatever happens, she’ll be more comfortable there anyway.”

Zelda tried to speak, to tell them both to stop fretting and leave her be, and it all came out wrong, like she was speaking through a mouthful of one of Hilda’s jams, and both her siblings ignored her anyway. Before she could even get a proper sense of what was what, she was being borne up, held in her brother’s arms, bride-fashion. 

He used to carry her like this all the time. Edward was six when Zelda came, old enough to be trusted to hold and rock the baby, walk her around when she was fussy and needed soothing, and still young enough to delight in the novelty value of it. And even as she got bigger, she did not grow out of wanting to be held and carted around by him. Even when she was well old enough to walk on her own, Zelda used to make Edward carry her upstairs to bed each night, until eventually, though she couldn’t quite recall when or why, they had come to the mutual agreement that they were both too old for all of that.

He let her go now, just as he had back then, placing her carefully atop her comforter, and then he was gone and she was alone with Hilda, who promptly began the process of taking Zelda’s vitals and then checking her up and down, searching for any sign of acute distress, in either her or…

“The baby,” Zelda said, her voice still faint and pathetic, “Hilda, is the baby…”

“She’s—it’s—fine,” Hilda said, placing a reassuring hand atop her sister’s, “Most definitely still in there, and its little heartbeat is as strong as it’s ever been. You’re both just fine, Zelds; I think that from now on we’ll just have to pay closer attention to your blood pressure. Making sure Edward can’t scream at you like a lunatic would be a good start.”

“He should scream at me,” said Zelda.

She didn’t expect a response to that; only more of the same gentle non-interference that Hilda had offered her throughout this entire ordeal. And so she was surprised at the vehemence with which her sister responded: “No, he bloody well should not.”

“And why shouldn’t he? He’s got every right to be angry.”

“But Zelda, the things he said to you—”

“Were true, and correct. Do you think for a moment that if it were you in this situation, I wouldn’t say the exact same?” She would, without a doubt, and probably worse, too. Probably she would have slipped Hilda an abortifacient brew in her morning tea, her sister’s wishes be damned. Zelda moved up on her bed, still a little woozy, but better once she’d gotten herself propped and settled on her pillows. “He’s right, Hilda. I have put the entire family at risk.”

“Oh, sod _the family_ , Zelda!” All of Hilda’s life, _the family_ and their expectations had been hung over her head like a storm of lower demons, ready to swoop in and rip her apart. For most of her life Hilda had been constantly reminded that she was an utter disgrace to _the family_ , wasn’t bright enough, powerful enough, devout enough. She couldn’t even count on both hands the number of times she had wanted to just walk out the front door and never look back, get away from the bloody family and never return. She was so incredibly tired of being beholden to the voracious demands of the Spellman name, of suffering for it and, now, watching Zelda suffer, too.

“You’re part of _the family_ , sister,” Zelda pointed out, as if Hilda ever could have forgotten, “If anyone finds out about this, any of it, your future will be in tatters, too. Everyone will assume you’re just like me, and no man will want to trust his lineage to the aunt of Zelda Spellman’s bastard, the kin of the disgraced Edward who was such an authority on all things except making sure his sister took her birth control.”

She paused, struck down by a wave of dizziness, catching her breath and waiting for her head to clear.

“I should have taken care of this thing when I had the chance, Hilda. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I never should have let it get this far. Satan, I wish that it had just died and fallen out, back there in the parlor.”

“Zelda!” Hilda looked stricken, and anyone might have sworn it were her own baby that her sister was speaking of, as though it were a living, breathing, fully-realized child that Zelda had just taken an axe to right in front of her. “How can you say that?”

“Because it would have been better!” hissed Zelda, “For us and for…for this thing. What kind of a life is it going to have? Cut off from its real family, given over to…to Satan only knows what kind of people?”

“I—I’m sure that Edward will be able to find someone nice,” said Hilda, trying and failing to sound certain, “Someone good, who’ll give her…or…or him…a proper home…”

“But how will we know, Hilda?”

Hilda truly could not say, and so she did not try. What she did instead was the only thing that she could think to. She reached over to brush her sister’s cheek, wiping away the rebel tear that had appeared there, the first that she’d seen Zelda cry since this all began. 

Then she commanded Zelda to lie down, proclaimed that she needed rest, and undressed her down to her slip her with all the tenderness of a mother putting her child to bed. And after the window shades had been drawn, Hilda removed all her own outer layers and crawled beneath her sister’s sheets, pressing herself close to Zelda in the single bed, just as she had done when they were children and one of them was too plagued by nightmares to sleep without the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay Zelds is okay. Kind of.
> 
> Double whammy today, kids. Continue on to the next chapter for more angst.


	6. Chapter 6

After Edward had been involuntarily drawn in, the last Spellman to know of the big family secret, things got paradoxically easier around the house, quieter and more peaceful. The calm before the storm, as it were.

Edward began taking weekend trips, leaving his sisters to their reading and baking and canning, their constant mending of the clothes that Zelda no longer fit into, their bickering that did not cease just because the elder sister was now too big, too swollen and too all-around miserable to chase the younger around with a hammer or a meat cleaver. 

And one day, as Zelda’s eleventh month drew to its close, Edward came home with wonderful news. There was a couple whose names he refused to divulge, but whom he assured them were among the Dark Lord’s most devoted disciples, and who would take the best possible care of the baby. They were young and both in the prime of their health and powers, and all should have been well for them, but their happiness was marred by the fact that she could not conceive, an especially painful circumstance, as all that she had ever wanted was to be a mother. And so they would be overjoyed to have Zelda’s child, and they would love it as fiercely as if it were really theirs.

“What do you think, Zelds?” Edward asked, gently.

Zelda lowered her newspaper only an inch or two, just enough so that her brother couldn’t fail to notice the dullness in her eyes as she said, “Fine,” in a tone so utterly without feeling it struck a note inside Edward that was somewhere between sympathy and guilt.

And after that, Hilda never heard her sister refer to the baby as “she” again, not even once. Indeed, Zelda avoided referring to the child at all, unless one of Hilda’s exams necessitated it. She also didn’t make any effort to speak to the baby, like Hilda had once caught her doing as she brushed out her hair before bedtime, and she had Hilda take down all the mirrors in their room and along any other route she traveled through the house, because she couldn’t bear to see herself, wouldn’t even look down her body if it could be avoided. 

Nor would she touch her own body, either, except to do the bare minimum in terms of personal care. Hilda was the one to wash and brush Zelda’s hair, now; she bathed her and rubbed her creams and lotions into her skin, kept her sister looking presentable. And she was, in the course of all this, the one to discover the vertical gashes on the inside of Zelda’s arms. It didn’t take much to figure out what was happening, especially when Hilda found dried blood and the remnants of skin underneath her sister’s nails.

She almost gagged at the sight, the images it conjured up, of Zelda digging in so deep that she summoned forth red rivulets, the mysterious stains on her nightgowns and bedsheets that had Hilda panicked until she found their source. Hilda told her sister that she must stop, she was scaring them, her and Edward. And when Zelda did not respond to that, and when her linens and nightclothes kept coming up crimson, Hilda still pressed, asserting that she was only going to hurt the baby, and then threatening to start cutting off fingers, trying and failing at everything to get Zelda to quit.

Indeed, towards the end, scratching herself up was about the only thing that Zelda could manage to do. In the last few weeks before Zelda’s world was due to fall apart, she mostly couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger for anything else, choosing to spend the bulk of her time lying in bed with her cheek pressed to her pillow, silently bleeding, hating, screaming.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter, kiddos.

Zelda killed her younger sister for the first time when Hilda was twelve and Zelda fifteen. Hilda was, naturally, terrified when she woke up in the Cain pit, alone in the dark, cold from a recent rain and with her head in agony from where the ice pick wound had healed over. But beneath the sheer animal fright was something much more profound, something that she was itching to climb out of her grave and indulge.

Hilda pushed up through the layers of earth, rebirthing herself with rage tearing at every nerve and sinew and conscious thought. She was ready to stalk up to the house and pay Zelda back in kind, concocting increasingly elaborate and violent murder methods with each step she took up the drive. And all of that, all of the anger and revenge plots, simply melted into nothing when she approached the house and saw Zelda on the porch, pacing and smoking a cigarette purloined from Papa.

Upon seeing her sister, Zelda had thrown the cigarette aside and bounded down the porch steps, and when she met Hilda in the center of the drive, Zelda stared at her for a long moment, her mind working overtime to figure out if Hilda was real. In all of the passing years since, Hilda’s memory had held onto the way Zelda looked at her then, the horror and regret and the sheer crushing sadness taking root and blooming behind her cornflower irises. Nor could Hilda ever forget how Zelda practically tackled her to the ground, crushing Hilda to her despite the muck and the blood and the worms still crawling all over the younger witch’s dress.

Zelda would tell her later that she had been gone for more than a day. Zelda killed her in the early afternoon, and when Hilda failed to reappear for dinner that night, Zelda became convinced that she made an awful mistake, that the Cain pit was just a children’s story Mama made up to amuse them. For almost a week after Hilda’s first resurrection, Zelda spent almost every hour of each day fussing over her, the only time she had in all their lives, and she made effusive promises that she would never, ever, _ever_ kill her sister again.

And of course Zelda broke that promise six months later, with a steak knife, and Hilda wanted to be angry as she crawled out of the pit, knew that she should be coming back with righteous indignation in her heart. But every time she thought of taking her revenge, of giving Zelda what was coming to her, all her mind conjured up was the way that Zelda’s body shook as she held her that first time, that expression in Zelda’s eyes, the realization of the gravity of what she had done, what had been risked and what she stood to lose.

In the weeks before Zelda’s baby was set to arrive, Hilda saw that horrified desperation almost every time she looked at her sister. It roused a kind of temporary madness in Hilda, who wanted nothing more than to take Zelda’s pain away, reassure her, protect her, and yet was powerless to do any of that.

So she did the only thing she could. She pushed their beds together. 

Every night, she curled herself around Zelda, trying to buttress her mute sister against the hurt. And for the most part Zelda accepted it; or, at least, she didn’t protest. She simply allowed Hilda to begin each night by holding her close, even if she did invariably drift toward her own side of the bed while Hilda slept like a boulder.

As the days fell away, though, bringing the birth ever closer, she mostly stopped sleeping, and Hilda along with her. The pair of them seemed to drift in a never-ending haze of fatigue, only occasionally allowing exhaustion to drop them and keep them unconscious for a few hours before it was time to wake up and do it all again, the pretending, the grieving, the slow giving up. And it was taking its toll on Hilda; her heart beat too fast sometimes, and then at others so slow she struggled to find a pulse. She was as pale as Zelda now, as listless, and she didn’t know how long she could go on like this. 

So Hilda had been grateful, on this particular night, when Zelda drifted off easily, and when she’d been able to follow right behind. But Hilda’s sleep was fitful; she dreamed of weeping and rushing water, and when she finally bolted awake, the bed was wet. Hilda wrinkled her nose, groggily wondering which one of them had done it, hoping it wasn’t her because Zelda—if she ever recovered—would never let her live it down. 

And then she became aware of her sister on the bed next to her, Zelda groaning, quietly, very obviously trying not to, and suddenly Hilda was more awake than she’d ever been. She twisted over to her right, ignoring the mess on the mattress, and saw that her sister was propped up on her pillows, looking like all of the False God’s angels had just descended to drag her away from Satan’s loving flames.

“Zelds,” Hilda whispered, and her sister looked at her, pupils so dilated that they eclipsed the blue of her eyes, “Zelda, are you having contractions?”

Zelda just nodded. “I have been. All day today.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it was false labor! I thought…Satan’s hoof, Hilda, it’s too early! It hasn’t even been thirteen months yet!”

“I know,” said Hilda, springing into action and going over to her dresser to hunt down the bathing bowl and something clean for both of them, “But sometimes babies come early; you know that.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, because the room was cold and Hilda was all wet. After changing and washing both herself and Zelda, Hilda examined her sister, confirming that, yes, Zelda was very much in labor, and Hilda herself didn’t know if she wanted to cry or throw up or run screaming from the entire situation. 

It was stupid, she told herself, because she wasn’t the one who was going to push out a human being and then probably immediately have to hand that child to her immovable prick of a brother and let him carry it off into the arms of strangers. But Hilda had never delivered a baby on her own; she’d only assisted with births, mostly handing over instruments and holding the mother’s hand and, once, catching a second, unexpected twin who came all of a sudden while the real midwife was tending the first child. Hilda wasn’t even certified yet, and sweet Lucifer, what had she been thinking to believe that she could get Zelda through this on her own?

Zelda interrupted Hilda’s panicked reverie by crying out, and her cry was punctuated by a sob at the end, and when Hilda looked up there was so much fear on Zelda’s face that she knew she had to get herself together. She was needed here; Zelda needed her more than she’d possibly ever needed anything, and Hilda couldn’t run away, not for a while yet, possibly not ever. So she forced herself to move, shifting Zelda around as she changed the soiled bedsheets, whispering calming affirmations and holding the older witch’s hand as she rode out another contraction. And even after it had passed, Zelda didn’t let go, clinging fast to her sister until Hilda declared that she had to go wake Edward, because they needed supplies and she couldn’t help Zelda deliver this baby and rush around looking for towels at the same time.

Zelda quailed at the mention of their brother’s name, begged Hilda not to let him anywhere near the room, or her, or the baby.

“I promise, love; he’s not going to set a foot in here. But the fact remains; we need supplies, and I’m damn well going to put him to work.”

So Zelda allowed her to leave, and Hilda stormed down the hallway, crashing into Edward’s bedroom and shaking him into consciousness.

“What?” he grumbled blearily, “Satan’s hoof, Hilda; it must be gone four in the morning. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m delivering a baby,” replied Hilda, surprising even herself with the confidence in her voice, “Do you not hear your sister screaming down the hall? Get up, and get me some hot water and clean towels, and for Satan’s sake, make me some coffee.”

Fifteen minutes later, Hilda was back at her sister’s side, and Edward was knocking with everything Hilda had requested. She accepted it all without a word before closing the door in his face and returning to focus all her attention on Zelda. Out in the hall, Edward contemplated knocking again, demanding an explanation of what, exactly, was happening, demanding to be let in, before he realized that he honestly and emphatically did not want to know or see. And so he left his sisters to it, going downstairs to the liquor cabinet to sit up with a glass of bourbon and his cigarettes.

The chilly morning gave way to a beautiful, mild early spring day, which in turn bled into evening and then deep night, and Zelda labored while Edward smoked and occasionally delivered water and food and cups of coffee that Hilda practically inhaled. The clock had just chimed two in the morning when Hilda examined her sister and announced that the time to push had come. 

And Zelda knew that Hilda was right, but all at once she felt herself standing on the edge of something, and she crashed back to a reality that she’d chosen not to inhabit for at least the last three months. It was an ugly reality in which Edward was probably waiting right outside the door to snatch her baby up, and she and her body were the child’s only proper defense against being taken out into the cold, and driven Satan only knew how many miles to be given over to Satan only knew what kind of people. 

She thought that she could not, under any circumstances, allow that to happen, and if she could only keep the child inside herself, refuse to let it go, then it would be safe. It made perfect sense to Zelda in her distressed state, and she tried to say as much to Hilda, who had been warned by her mentor that women in labor were prone to these kinds of delusions, and who had seen it herself, but still hadn’t been prepared to hear such madness from her incredibly calculating and sometimes annoyingly rational sister.

All Hilda could do was shake her head and say, “No, love, you can’t do that. I need you to push.”

Zelda was ready to argue, to defy, to dig her heels in and refuse, but then the urge to do exactly as her sister asked was too strong, overwhelming, and she bore down half-consciously, once, twice, and then again, until the room was filled with the confused screams of new life. Zelda’s head fell back to her pillow and she cursed herself for giving in, still lost in the fog and unable to think anything but, _I let her go, and now she’s gone forever and I’ll never feel her again_. And then the cries reached her ears, and it was instinct that had her sitting up and craning her neck, looking for her baby.

All she saw was Hilda’s back as she attended to something that Zelda could not see, and so she called to her sister: “My baby, Hilda. My baby, is she…?”

“She’s fine, Zelds!” As if to prove it, the baby gave another cry, and Hilda couldn’t help but chuckle through the tears streaming down her cheeks. “She’s strong and perfect. Oh, and she’s a boy.”

“A boy?” Zelda asked, and she sounded almost indignant.

“Yes. You’ve got a son, Zelda.” Hilda picked the baby up and turned, displaying him for Zelda to see. “Do you want to hold him?”

There was nothing else in the world that Zelda wanted to do. Her arms rose from her sides automatically, and it took all the willpower she possessed to stop them, to bite her lip and shake her head and say, “No.”

Because Hilda was wrong; this baby was not to be her son, nor she his mother. He was not hers; he never had been, and holding him would do neither of them any good.

“Are…are you sure, Zelds? You could just…”

“No, Hilda.” And then Zelda was withdrawing again, turning away from her sister and the baby in her arms, carefully keeping her eyes fixed on some point far outside of the open window. “No, keep him away from me.”

And Hilda would have honored her sister’s request. But half an hour passed, half an hour of the baby constantly squalling and Zelda carefully disengaging. Hilda helped her sister deliver the afterbirth, washed her up, changed Zelda’s nightgown and changed the sheets, and then set about trying and failing at every trick she knew—which admittedly didn’t amount to much—to soothe the child before giving up and admitting that she wouldn’t be able to, not without her sister’s help.

“Zelda, he’s hungry.”

“So feed him,” replied Zelda, “You should have formula ready; I showed you how to make it.”

“Yes, I know, but Zelds, he’s two weeks early; I don’t have any made.”

“Oh, for Satan’s sake, Hilda…”

“Calm down, Zelda; I’ll get right on it, but for now…well, he’s not going to be quiet until he’s fed…”

Zelda threw her head back, in annoyance, in exhaustion, in agonized surrender to the task ahead.

“Fine,” she said, “Bring him to me.”

Hilda set the baby carefully in her sister’s arms, and Zelda opened her nightgown, bringing him to her breast, and the baby found it immediately, latched on like it was the easiest thing in the world. And throughout the feeding, Zelda refused to look at him; she stared out of the window until a cramp in her neck overwhelmed her, forced her to turn her head. She was met with the sight of black hair, a full head of it, and sienna skin, and eyes that were now blue, like all babies’, but would turn eventually and become midnight-dark like his father’s. As if sensing that he was being watched, the baby ceased his suckling, let Zelda’s nipple slide from his mouth and then turned the full force of those eyes on her, giving her a knowing look, intense and intelligent and almost challenging.

And Zelda was lost in it, in those half-open yet all-seeing eyes, in the surge of pure overwhelming devotion that swept through and crashed over her until she couldn’t even see the baby anymore, not through the year’s worth of tears that had accumulated and begun to fall all at once.

Hilda stepped forward, arms outstretched, offered to take the baby now he was done eating, but Zelda hung on, held the little boy to her, shrank back from her sister with a panicked, “No!”

“All right,” said Hilda, getting the hint and moving back a few paces, “I’m not going to take him away, Zelds. He’s your baby; you can hold him all you want.”

And she did; she held him and cried for a good long while, fed him again when he fussed. She gave him to Hilda only once, so she could change him when he needed changing and wrap him up in a new towel, and then she immediately demanded him back, holding him until he fell asleep on her chest. Edward knocked on the door at some point, tried to enter, and Zelda glared at the door handle until both sisters heard his shriek and smelled his burnt flesh as the metal scalded him, and Hilda couldn’t help but giggle at that, thinking that it served him right.

“You’re going to have to let him in eventually, though, Zelda,” she said.

“The fuck I am,” Zelda replied, forcing another laugh from her sister.

As the first hints of dawn shot through the sky, Hilda began to notice Zelda fading out, and offered to take the baby so that she could get some sleep.

“I’m fine,” Zelda slurred, “And he’s not going anywhere.”

“No, he’s not,” agreed Hilda, “Unless, of course, you fall asleep and end up dropping him. Then he’ll be going straight onto the floor.”

Zelda gave her a dirty look, about to rebuke Hilda when a wave of fatigue took hold and she could feel all her limbs going slack and she could not fight against it, so she simply turned and offered the baby up.

“Don’t let anything happen to him,” Zelda whispered, and that look of desperate terror was back in her eyes until Hilda banished it with a solemn promise that the baby would be safe and waiting for her when she woke. 

After Zelda slipped into the deepest, easiest slumber she’d experienced in months, Hilda busied herself, trying to tidy the room as best she could with a baby in her arms. She pulled a drawer from her own dresser, began lining it with blankets and one of Zelda’s furs and other soft things, and then she set the baby in it, making a mental note to send Edward up to the attic for their old crib the next time she saw him.

As though Edward had sensed her thinking about him, he came knocking at the door again, trying the knob tentatively, sighing in relief when it did not melt his flesh, and poking his face in. Hilda turned to greet him with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a carefully neutral, “Yes?”

“I…I just…I wanted to see if she’s all right,” he whispered, his gaze darting to the bed where Zelda still slept.

“She’s fine,” replied Hilda.

“And the baby?”

“Also fine.”

Edward nodded. “Good. That’s good. Umm…boy or girl?”

“Boy,” said Hilda, and she was annoyed when Edward nodded, as though he had known it all along.

“Can I…can I see him?”

Hilda bit her lip, considered it, flicked her eyes over to Zelda, who had not roused.

“Come on, Hilda. I’m not going to snatch him up.”

Cautiously, Hilda nodded, and as Edward approached the makeshift crib, he felt the push of his youngest sister’s magic, and understood that he could look all he wanted, but if he tried to touch, she would do something that would probably leave him unable to give this child any cousins.

No matter. Looking was enough, at least for now.

“He’s handsome,” Edward said, and his voice was far away, contemplative, “But he doesn’t look a damn thing like Zelda; are you sure she’s really the mother?”

Hilda’s eyes narrowed, and Edward just shook his head. “I know. I’m not funny. Umm…do you need anything? Any of you?”

Hilda replied that, no, they were all quite all right, and he took that as his cue to leave. As he stood on the threshold of his sisters’ door, he was stopped by Hilda’s plain assertion that, “She’s never going to let you take him.”

“I know,” Edward replied, nodding and then stepping out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so umm I've never written a birth scene before, like seriously everything I know about labor and birth, etc. comes from Call the Midwife and I'm actually super nervous about this chapter so if you guys could give me some feedback and reassure me that I did not, in fact, do a terrible job of this, that would be great thanks.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has been an emotional ride, hasn't it? I'm almost sad to see it done...

Hilda had vastly underestimated just how nice it would be to have a baby in the house. About midway through Zelda’s pregnancy, when the plan had still been to leave the child on the church steps, Zelda assured her that babies were horrible little things who cried at all hours and defecated constantly and made everyone around them miserable.

“When I do this thing again,” Zelda had said, “When I do it the right way, you can bet your britches I’ll have nannies until the children are at least nine or ten.”

There had been no talk of a nanny yet. Indeed, in the three days since her son’s birth, Zelda had, for the most part, refused to let anyone else near him. Hilda got the baby when her sister slept or bathed or was still too sore to tend to him properly, but most of his time was spent in his mother’s arms. Which, Hilda reflected, was as it should be, and for which she couldn’t exactly blame Zelda, not when they were still so unsure of where, exactly, Edward stood, or what lengths he might go to in order to see his will carried out.

Thankfully, their brother was not an idiot, and had the good sense to make himself scarce. He brought food and other provisions up to the sisters’ bedroom, talked to Hilda when she ventured to the kitchen to make Zelda poultices and teas for her pain, but was otherwise a nonentity. Mostly, they had spent three solid days locked up in their bedroom, Zelda keeping guard over her baby, and Hilda refusing to leave Zelda unless necessity demanded it.

And Hilda was entirely fine with this arrangement, because her sister kept her busy enough. Zelda never had been good at being sick or incapacitated; she was a terrible patient, and that didn’t change just because she had her son latched half the time. She was as demanding as she had been when suffering with the measles as a child, as whiny, and every moment she spent not feeding or rocking or cooing at the baby was riddled with orders and complaints. Hilda herself did not complain, couldn’t bring herself to argue with a woman who’d just given birth and whose baby’s fate was still very much in the air. But she was glad that Zelda was momentarily occupied with a bath and she and her nephew had a moment to themselves.

“Isn’t it nice to have some time together?” Hilda asked the baby, whom Zelda had left laid out on the bed next to her, swaddled in an old blanket that Edward had brought down from the attic and Hilda had washed, a blanket that had been Edward’s, and then Zelda’s and Hilda’s in turn.

The child, for his part, turned his uncanny eyes upon his aunt, twitching his mouth in what might have been a smile but could also—and probably more likely—have been gas.

“Yes,” Hilda said, “You like spending time with your Auntie Hilda, don’t you? We’re going to be the best of friends, little one. I’m going to teach you so many fun things, and,” She lowered her voice, bent down conspiratorially, “We’re going to have fun sending your mummy and stuffy Uncle Edward absolutely crackers, aren’t we?”

Hilda had never been around many babies. She didn’t pretend to have any special insight into what made them tick, what they thought and how they expressed themselves. But there was something in this child’s eyes, a little twinkle that she thought might have been mischief, and it pleased her.

“You are such a handsome little thing, you know,” said Hilda, tapping the baby lightly on his tiny nose, “When you get bigger, we’re going to be beating the girls away with a broom. Yes, because you’re just so handsome. You’re the most beautiful little blessing the Dark Lord ever sent anyone, aren’t you?”

“Sweet Lucifer, Hilda,” came Zelda’s voice from the open bedroom door, “With the way you’re crowing over him, anyone would swear you’d carried and birthed him yourself.”

Hilda was ready with a retort, but when she looked up, she saw that Zelda was smiling, just slightly, as she ran a hand through her damp hair.

“I’m simply bonding with my nephew,” she replied, tracing a gentle finger along the baby’s hairline. She expected another maybe-smile-maybe-gas quirk of his little face, but instead was met with a sharp wail that made her jump back, looking stricken.

“Oh, Satan, what did I do?” she asked, turning frightened eyes on Zelda, who snorted.

“Don’t panic, Hilda; you didn’t damage him. That’s his hungry cry.” And with that, Zelda went forward to collect her son, coming to rest on her bed and opening up her gown for him to feed.

Just a few minutes later, there came a knock at the door, and Edward’s voice, and Hilda looked to where Zelda was still sitting with the baby. The sisters exchanged a calculating glance, before Zelda finally nodded. Hilda went first to her nightstand, picking up a scarf that rested there and offering it to Zelda, in case she wanted to cover herself, but the older witch just batted it away and motioned for Hilda to open the door. Clearly, the moment of truth had come, and Zelda was eager to be getting on with it, so Hilda went to the door, greeted her brother and answered in the affirmative when he asked if he could come in.

Zelda, still feeding her baby, looked defiant as she regarded him, whereas Edward, his glance drawn down to his sister’s breast and the infant latched onto it, almost immediately turned scarlet, tilted his head towards the ceiling and addressed it when he said, “Umm…so…Zelda, I’ve been thinking…”

And Zelda let out a frustrated sigh, rolling her eyes at her brother. 

“Really, Edward. If you’re not going to be an adult and _look at me_ , then I’m afraid I won’t be able to take anything you’re about to say seriously.”

So Edward brought his head down, even though his cheeks were burning now—he so strongly resembled a sentient tomato that Hilda was having trouble keeping her laughter in—and met his sister’s gaze.

“Zelda,” he repeated, “I’ve been thinking…”

“Oh? You’ve been thinking? About what _you_ would like me to do with _my_ son?” she said, ready to defend herself, to fight, to hex her brother if necessary.

“No,” he said, surprising both his sisters, and rendering Zelda momentarily speechless. “I’ve been thinking about how we can make this work.”

“Make what work?” asked Hilda, from across the room, “There isn’t much to it, Edward. Zelda keeps her baby, she raises her baby, and the both of us just step back and let her do it. That’s the only option there is.”

“It’s not that simple! You know it isn’t, Hilda, and so do you,” Edward said, turning back to Zelda.

“So what?” she asked, “You’re going to insist that I give him up? Try to take him from me by force?” She unconsciously drew the baby closer to her, felt her heart scurrying in her chest like a scared rabbit, because she knew, if it really came down to it, that Edward _could_ do exactly that. Zelda was no weakling, physically or magically. She could hold her own, but Edward always had been and always would be stronger, and in this case, he had the whole of their society on his side, while Zelda had less than nothing.

“No! Bless it all to heaven, will you both just listen to me? Look, there is absolutely no way for Zelda to raise this child as her son, and we all know it. Do you think we can just bring him to black mass, introduce him as Zelda’s bastard and expect that the entire coven will just let that stand? It’s never going to happen, possibly not during any of our lifetimes, and certainly not by next Sunday.”

“So then what is your solution?” asked Zelda. The baby had finished eating now, and she was putting her breast back into her nightgown before lifting him onto her shoulder to burp him.

“Do you remember cousin Magnus?” Edward said, causing both of his sisters to raise their eyebrows and exchange a puzzled glance.

“Magnus the recluse?” Hilda asked. 

Each of the Spellman siblings had met Magnus maybe once or twice in their lives. He was their father’s cousin, but had never been interested in socializing, never joined the family for Feast of Feasts or the winter solstice or any other occasions. They had actually been surprised, about a month or so ago, to hear that he’d been killed by witch hunters, not because the idea of witch hunters was shocking to them—they were less prominent now, but still out there, an ever-present threat—but because it seemed unlikely that Magnus could have done anything to draw their attention, much less their ire. Edward had gone to his funeral, along with some story about his sisters being in Bombay and unable to get passage back on such short notice, because Zelda had been much too pregnant for travel and Hilda refused to leave her.

“Yes, Magnus the recluse. Who mixed and mingled with nobody and spent most of his time alone in his old house, whom nobody, even in our circles, really knew or had anything to do with. Who could conceivably have fathered a child without anyone ever being any the wiser.”

“We’re going to pass my baby off as cousin Magnus’s?” Zelda asked, “Why would you think anyone will believe that? He never left his house; how would he even have met a woman, much less impregnated her?”

“I don’t know, Zelda! He was a hermit, not one of the False God's monks! Maybe he had a secret lover. Maybe he never left his house because he was too busy passing the time with her. We never saw cousin Magnus, and he didn’t correspond with us; we don’t know what he got up to. Which is why, when his solicitor showed up on our doorstep with Magnus’s son in tow, we were just as taken aback as anyone.”

“That’s ridiculous, Edward.”

“Possibly, but it’s the best cover story we’re going to get. Hilda, please talk some sense into your sister.”

Zelda turned skeptical eyes upon Hilda, who was wringing her hands. She hated to agree with Edward, especially over something like this, but…“I think he’s right, Zelds. I think that it’s the best we’re likely to do. I hate that we have to lie, but…I think the consequences for you, and for…for the baby…I do think we need some kind of a story.”

“Oh, for Satan’s sake,” Zelda muttered, rolling her eyes upwards, and then back down to her baby, who was now resting peacefully against her chest, entirely unaware that he was currently a topic of debate. He was blissfully calm, the most beautiful thing Zelda had ever seen, and so painfully vulnerable. 

And it was Zelda’s fault that he’d been brought into this hostile milieu; it was something that she had done to him, imposed upon him. It was all her fault, but if she didn’t go along with the story Edward was urging her to tell, if she allowed anyone to find out the truth, it wouldn’t just be her facing the consequences. The boy would have to muddle through it all as well, and he would spend his life being told that he was a black mark on his family, that he never should have existed, that if his mother really loved him, she would have either killed him in the womb or let him go. Zelda could take all that shame upon herself; she could weather the derision and nastiness, but what she couldn’t do was see her child crushed under the weight of it.

“Fine,” she said, “He’s Magnus’s son. Even though Magnus was hundreds of years old and looked like a damn trout and nobody is going to believe that he managed to get any woman to sleep with him without an infatuation spell of the highest caliber.”

Edward chuckled. “Well, how he got the child is not for us to worry about. All that concerns us is that his son is our responsibility now. We were generous enough to take him in, because we’re all the family he has left, and we’ll be raising him. All of us, together. Which means, Zelda, that from now on, you’re his incredibly devoted auntie, and nothing more.”

Zelda nodded. Of course Edward was right; of course it wouldn’t do to be too maternal with the child, lest she rouse anyone’s suspicion. Even in the privacy of their own home, it wouldn’t be safe, because what she practiced at home might slip out, accidentally, at black mass or another coven function. And then, of course, the boy would need to be just as in the dark as everyone else, because they could swear him to secrecy all they wanted, but children talked, they let things slip without even knowing it, and anyway, the entire point of this arrangement was not to burden him with his mother’s secrets.

So Zelda tried to be stoic, but couldn’t help the tears shining in her eyes, and Hilda, seeing this, crossed the room to sit with her sister, to rest her head on Zelda’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, little sister,” Edward breathed, and he did sound genuinely contrite, as though he hated the necessity for secrecy just as much as Zelda and Hilda did. He sat down on Hilda’s bed, turned his eyes upon Zelda, and then on the baby. “I just…I never could have given him away to strangers, I don't think, and I certainly can't now, but I also can’t see any other way to make keeping him work.”

“There isn’t one,” acknowledged Zelda, allowing a single tear to fall before she sniffed and composed herself. “Thank you, Edward.”

Edward shook his head. “Sweet Satan, please don’t thank me for this,” he said. If he were being honest with himself, he was ashamed, mortified by how he had acted in the last few months, what he had put Zelda through, and now what he was proposing for her child. He was deeply sorry, and he knew that he had a long way to go to make things up to her. He started by reaching for her free hand, the one that wasn’t resting on her baby’s back, taking it and brushing his thumb over the knuckles.

“I’ve…umm…I’ve also been thinking about names,” he said, “You know, for him.”

“Don’t you think Zelda should get to name her own child?” Hilda asked.

“Yes, she should, and she will,” Edward replied, “But I just wanted to suggest…well, I always thought it would be nice if the first Spellman son were named after Grandfather. Of course, I always assumed that the first Spellman son would be my child, but since it’s this little lad…what do you think, Zelda?”

Zelda’s expression had softened with memories of her grandfather. She and her siblings had all loved him; he was the consummate nice old man. Surviving the witch purges with one son left to him—although he’d lost his wife and his daughter—had made him prize family above all else, and when his grandchildren were little he doted on them, spoiling them with sweets and piggyback rides and story time on his lap. They had all cried for days when he finally gave up the ghost, including Zelda, who even as a little girl hardly wept for anything.

“I think that would be appropriate,” she said, turning to her baby and whispering, softly, “But what do you think? Do you want to be Ambrose Spellman?”

The little boy cooed as if in affirmation, and then nuzzled his face into Zelda’s breast, and she kissed his forehead, held him closer, couldn’t stop herself. There would come a time when she’d have to give him up, when he wouldn't be her baby anymore and she would have to spend the rest of her life pretending not to be his mother and agonizing over it. But that time was not now. For now, he was here, and he knew who she was, and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Write a 15,000+ word angst fic just to indulge one of my niche and probably super far-off theories about the Spellman family? Oh, yes, I definitely did.
> 
> Just fyi, I'm thinking about writing a sequel to this. It would deal with Ambrose growing up not knowing his parents (or so he thinks) and Zelda trying to deal with covertly raising her son who is also not her son. I already have a chapter done, but not sure how interested you kids would be. Do let me know.


End file.
